Vehicles have become a representative means of transport in the life of today. Additionally, the advent of low-priced and various kinds of vehicles may cause an increase in the number of vehicles per household.
Especially, according to a recent worldwide trend toward energy conservation and environment regulation, the market of eco-friendly electric vehicle (EV) is making a rapid and strong growth. In U.S.A. and Europe, the propagation of electric vehicles has been made compulsory, and in Korea, interest and development in eco-friendly green cars are showing a steady growth.
However, a great part of power needed to drive electric vehicles still relies upon thermal power generation. In case where electric power produced by means of thermal power generation is used as a power source of electric vehicles, CO2 emission is actually greater due to thermal power generation and efficiency of vehicles is still lower than in case of fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
Thus, a technique to effectively manage electric power required for operating electric vehicles in view of energy efficiency as well as environment is needed.